Reverse Migrations
by portendpike
Summary: When one door closes, another door opens. If you close a door and find this to not be true, then you should open a window instead, and climb out of the building. Desperate to escape her scripted life, Shizuru gets behind the wheel and heads South. In the process of slipping out of her life, she stumbles into Natsuki's. AU
1. Chapter 1

When one door closes, another door opens. If you close a door and find this to not be true, then you should open a window instead, and climb out of the building. Edifices are overrated. Especially when there's a whole world out there to explore.

1.

Shizuru Fujino is twenty-four years old. And her life as she knows it, is over.

She's known for having near perfect control over her emotions, her pragmatic diplomacy and…well, for having the largest fan club to ever grace the grounds of Todai. This however, does little to explain her impulsive, irrational, and, above all else…rather stupid behavior of late.

Half a day ago, she had thrown her BlackBerry and scrunched up _Letter of Requisition _as far and as hard as she could into Tokyo Bay in what she hoped was a dramatic act of defiance. She had reveled immensely at the plop the former made as it sunk beneath the depths, then stood, arms forlornly resting on rusted green metal rails, while she watched the little paper ball bob up and down in the water.

She's spent all her life fulfilling expectations - first her family's, then her peers' - to a T and she is tired of it. Beyond tired, she is exhausted: dead on her feet, and sleepwalking through life. The letter had been the final straw. Realization dawned. It was now or never, brave uncharted territory or be jerked around like a marionette on a string for the rest of her life.

She's tired of living a lie. She's tired of being an expy of someone else. The archetypal perfect daughter, the perfect student, the perfect heir. She's tired of having the plans for her entire life laid out before her.

When the ball starts to disintegrate, she cups her hands around her mouth and screams her throat raw. It wasn't a cuss word that she screamed, wasn't a name, wasn't even a word at all. Just a high-pitched wail, the language of the disgruntled, the exhausted, the defeated.

Then, chest heaving and face red, she had made a quick get-away before anyone reported her to the authorities for disrupting the peace.

2.

When she makes up her mind to leave, there is little to hold her back. She slips an envelope entailing an abridged and, admittedly, far-fetched account of the circumstances of her sudden departure under her landlady's door, together with the rest of the month's rent. She takes two weeks off from work, then duplicitously instructs her secretary to unwittingly tender in her letter of resignation on the day of her supposed return.

Erstin's a nice girl, Shizuru thinks. When her secretary nods earnestly at her order and inquires concernedly if everything is quite alright, Shizuru clears all doubts with an immaculate and reassuring smile. Somewhere along the line, lying became easier to tell than the truth. Her heart pangs the slightest bit at having to lie to her, but it was in Erstin's best interest to be kept in the dark. Honestly, the less she knew, the better.

She throws together a haphazard mix of clothes, toiletries and knickknacks then crams them into a single monstrous suitcase. She ties the protective charm her mother had given her when she had first left Kyoto to it, because ultimately, she's still more sentimental than shrewd. Because it's the only thing tying her to her mother, other than the flower-arranging, tea-ceremonies and traditional calligraphy.

Before she leaves, she takes a long, hot shower. And standing in front of mirror at the sink, bare and pink and clean, she stretches out a hand to scrawl something onto the fogged up mirror. One squiggly line, then a dot. A question mark.

It's bad enough that she has to make a hasty exit, the least she can do is to make sure it isn't a sloppy one.

3.

She drives to the nearest convenient store and buys, among other things, a map of Japan, a bic marker, and a store-bought bento box.

In retrospect, Shizuru thinks, sitting on a park bench with the map spread out, whoever said the first step was the hardest was lacking sorely in the foresight department. After the first step, every subsequent move is dogged increasingly by self-doubt and hesitation at the prospect of navigating the great unknown.

She locates herself on the map and circles it in red ink.

Taking in the enormity of the situation, she leans back onto the cold wooden bench, and heaves a great sigh. There went her future: up in smoke; down the drain; out the elephant's caboose and what have you. Well, to that she says goodbye and good riddance. But with liberation comes a whole other set of problems to face. Upon trying to chart out a new destination, she draws a complete and utter blank. Apart from her childhood spent in Kyoto, the furthest she's travelled was Chiba. And that had been solely to attend a business seminar. There was one other time, but she'd rather not remember that right now.

Skeletons were meant for another time, another place.

An orange tabby, catching a whiff of her open, but, as yet, untouched bento box, hops onto the park bench, partly hoping for a free meal, and maybe a tummy rub, if the situation permitted. Unbeknownst to it at this point in time, it will get those and more. It will get a conversation partner.

In retrospect, Shizuru thinks, she has, in laymen terms, fucked up big time.

"Where will I go?"

"What will I do now?"

"What will become of me?"

She hunches forward, elbows resting on her knees and head cradled in her hands.

"Why am I asking a cat?"

The cat in question simply answers with a quizzical tilt of its head. Blind to the meaning of her tirade, but sensing something amiss form her tone of voice, it edges forward, and nuzzles her elbow in what it Shizuru hopes is some gesture of comfort, and not some animalistic desire to mark its territory.

Shizuru looks down at it and sighs once more."I apologize. There's nothing wrong with being a cat."

She picks up a slice of tuna with the opposite ends of her chopsticks and offers it up to the cat. Then, she sets the map aside, and begins to dig into her meal. With her free hand, she reaches out to pet the cat.

It nuzzles her hand fondly, then purrs, utterly content with the moment. Sometimes, Shizuru wishes it was as simple as that. Sometimes, Shizuru wishes she were a cat.

4.

In the end, she never does come to a concrete decision on where to go. Details like where is she heading and what'll she do with her time were just kinks to be ironed out later. The journey preceded the destination, after all. As any object would preceded its shadow.

But at the back of her head, a small, niggling voice still hisses, _how long do you think you can run until they catch up with you? And what will you do then?_

And then she'll… she'll… She really hadn't thought that far ahead yet. Oh well, she'll cross that bridge when she reaches it.

Till then, she'll drive till she runs out of gas, as far away from her plastic life filled with its shiny surfaces as she possibly can.

Japan was a big place.

All she knows is the further away from Tokyo and Kyoto the better. And criminals always head south, so she decides that's as much of a direction as she'll need. As for the details, she'll go where the world takes her, and failing that, she'll fall back on her car's GPS system.

The only electronic device she brings along is her iPhone, and that's solely for the music. After all, what's a reckless escapade without some theme music? Shizuru Fujino had romantic and misconceived notions of wild getaways that she'd rather not give up.

She's not that much of a sentimental fool though, so she stops at a discreet (seedy) auto-shop on the way out of town to get a fresh new coat of paint, and a change of number plates.

5.

So she drove.

When she reached a fork in the road she flipped a coin. When it got dark she either stopped at a cheap roadside motel or pulled up by the side of the road to sleep. She would lower the front seat of her car and wind down the windows to leave a small gap, before curling up in a half-moon ball.

She took routes which deliberately stayed clear of big cities and drove till four a.m. to escape having to camp out near Kyoto.

In the dead of the night, when the cicadas shrieked ceaselessly into the dark, and the heat and humidity made her clothes cling to her like a second skin, she'd climb up onto the roof of the car to see the night stars. She'd identify constellations and find Polaris on the off-chance that it'd guide her somewhere safe.

6.

The universe has a funny way of being a complete asshole when your chips are down.

Of course this would be how it ends. The only way it could.

On a dirt road, in some remote Japanese countryside, Shizuru hears strange noises coming out from the engine of her cherry red corvette. It pops, crackles and wheezes for half a mile, then, after putting up the good fight, finally keels over at a four way intersection. Black plumes of smoke escapes the hood and forms tendrils which curl upwards in a bid to reach the endless sky.

Shizuru pulls up the hood of the car to check, but it's no use. Her knowledge of car maintenance started with how to fill the engine up with petrol and ended with how to check the water levels.

Shizuru Fujino is low on funds; low on morale; out of tea.

She's driven a good thousand kilometers all the way from Tokyo and this is how it ends?

She doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. She starts with the former, then works her way to the latter at the thought of having to go back to her old life. Plastic exchanges and brittle bones, dangerous smiles and as much pretentious bullshit to propel a rocket to the moon and back.

Just who is she kidding? It had to end.

She sits on the trunk of her car and bawls and bawls, hot and angry tears, like she's never done since she was eight years old and her mother left them forever.

A good fifteen minutes into her pity party, a beat-up pick-up truck pulls up by the side of the road. From it, a pony-tailed grease-monkey emerges in a baseball cap and a crinkled blue jumpsuit, smudged with grease and stained with oil.

Despite the soiled threads, she carries herself with an air of aloof confidence and walks like sex on a stick in the midday heat, kicking up loose, sandy particles of dust with each crunch of her boot on the gravelly dirt road.

She walks up to Shizuru and stops a half-meter away upon noticing Shizuru's tear-stained face, her puffy eyes, running nose. She reaches deep into a side pocket, procures a handkerchief, then offers it out to her.

Snot-nosed and bleary-eyed, Shizuru wordlessly takes it and blows. The mechanic tips her hat down and over her eyes, looking away while she stands by the side, allowing Shizuru that little semblance of privacy.

At a dusty four-way intersection in the middle of nowhere, this is where everything starts.

* * *

So how was it? Shizuru's not too OOC, I hope. Feedback is immensely appreciated, grammatically or otherwise. I promise, dear readers, that when I do write the second chapter, Shizuru will talk to entities who aren't… cats.


	2. Chapter 2

If you encounter something in life you don't dig, there are three things you can do.  
1. Capitulate, and learn to accept it.  
2. Fight it with everything you got.  
3. Run away.

There are three sides to the coin, but come on, how often does it land on its rim and roll away?

7.

If there's one thing Natsuki Kuga can't handle, it's crying girls. The sight of them just makes her squirm and feel all… weird and protective inside. It's like seeing a cardboard box full of abandoned puppies by the roadside. What does the universe expect her to do? Walk away and leave them there? They're puppies for crying out loud! Puppies!

…But let us put the metaphorical puppies aside for now and focus on matters at hand.

Their first conversation hadn't been much of a conversation at all. Natsuki, who had never been a budding conversationalist to begin with, had been reduced to a mumbling, spluttering mess. Shizuru, too choked up by sobs and hiccups, could only nod or shake her head in reply.

The first fifteen minutes in their drive to the repair shop had been the pinnacle of all awkward silences. After which, Natsuki looks over at Shizuru and notices that she's cried herself to sleep.

She grimaces at the dark circles under Shizuru's eyes, at the haggard look and rumpled clothes. Questions run wild in Natsuki's mind, stumbling over each other and ricocheting off the walls, but she knows this is not the time for that. Instead, she eases up on the gas pedal and tries her best to make for a smooth journey.

8.

Shizuru stirs when they near the dilapidated, rustic auto repair shop Natsuki calls her workplace.

After Natsuki pulls into the garage, she turns off the ignition then turns to Shizuru, in the process treating her to a view of two vibrant emerald orbs. "Do you feel better now?" She asks, voice soft and laced with concern.

"Y-yes." Shizuru clears her throat, bites her lip."I'm sorry you had to see that."

She honestly, earnestly is. Breakdowns, Shizuru thinks, are unseemly and unsightly things to be carried out in the confines and privacy of one's bathroom. Away from public eye. Away from public scrutiny.

Why? A part of her asks. Because it is unbecoming of a Fujino? You have thrown it all away, Shizuru. You are a Fujino no longer.

But the name is more than a name, and it clings to her still, in her thoughts and her words. If she is honest with herself, she will admit that being a Fujino has become so intrinsically intertwined with who she is as a person that she does not know how to be anyone else. She has worn a mask for so long that she has forgotten who she is underneath the chameleon skin.

Dark waters, Shizuru, she thinks. You are treading dark waters.

"It's alright. Everyone has a bad day."Natsuki says, giving a small, but good-natured smile, unknowingly pulling Shizuru out of her muddled thoughts.

More like a bad decade, Shizuru wants to clarify, but smiles gratefully in response nonetheless.

"Thank you," Shizuru leans forward to catch a glimpse of the name tag sewn onto her uniform,"Kuga-san."

She does not notice the way Natsuki's breath catches or the squiggly expression her mouth makes as she does this. If there's another thing Natsuki Kuga can't handle, it's an unexpected invasion of her personal space.

In fact, Natsuki takes that as a cue to get out of the front seat. Walking to the other side of the pick-up and opening the door, she says, "Call me Natsuki. What's yours?"

Are they always so forthcoming in the countryside? Shizuru thinks. In her circles, names held power and every word was deliberately chosen to illustrate intent.

Her lips curl upwards in a genuine smile as she accepts the outstretched hand. "Ookini, Natsuki. I'm Shizuru."

9.

"So, what brings you to Fuuka? We don't have much here for your type, and you don't look like you're just passing through." Natsuki says, tinkering away from under her car.

Propping her elbows up on the workbench, Shizuru raises an eyebrow. When she speaks, her voice is laced not with ill-nature, but with genuine, maybe even morbid, curiosity.

"My type?"

She hasn't gotten her hands on a mirror in quite a bit, but Shizuru's sure that she looks like something the cat dragged in, spat up on, then dragged out again to rot in the afternoon sun. In fact, Shizuru's sure that if her fan club caught wind of her current condition, they'd faint on sight.

Natsuki doesn't take her eyes off her work, "Yuppies. No offense, but your mannerisms and attire are a dead give-away. Also, the car."

She lets the information sink in. It dawns on her that she has been… less than inconspicuous in her escape. Small towns make for constrained hiding spaces. Maybe she should have ditched the car, and got a haircut and contacts to be safe. …Maybe she shouldn't have given her real name.

Or would that have been overkill? She loves her old corvette, and besides, she has 20/20 vision. As for the rest, what's done is done, no point dwelling in the past.

She is so engrossed in her trail of thoughts that she does not notice the passage of time. Natsuki takes the silence to mean something else entirely. To Natsuki, the silence spans uncomfortable eons.

The only sound between them is the steady, clockwork wrenching of a loose bolt.

Eventually, Natsuki clears her throat and, afraid that she's offended her, says, "I apologize, for overstepping my boundaries. Or for making you uncomfortable. I'm not… not like those xenophobic types."

Jolted back into reality, Shizuru lets the silence persist for a while longer, content with watching Natsuki squirm.

"And, I, um, I like your accent."

Shizuru can't help chuckling at that, and she lifts a dainty hand to cover her mouth. She's yet to answer her question, so eventually, she decides to cut Natsuki some slack.

"I'm a fugitive."

Immediately after her comment, Natsuki slides out from under the car, meets her gaze head-on and asks, very seriously, "There's no body in the trunk, is there?"

Shizuru bursts out laughing. "Nothing so interesting. I am on the run, though not from the law."

From what? From who? Did someone hurt you? Natsuki's mind is running wild with theories and possibilities of what could spur her desperate escape.

It is said that the eyes are windows to the very soul. Natsuki does not voice her thoughts, but her brows scrunch together worriedly and her vivid green eyes tell all Shizuru needs to know about the lengths she would go.

This girl, Shizuru thinks, wears her heart on her sleeve and is in over her head. A girl with a heart of gold and a head full of straw. Faced with such an individual, Shizuru is conflicted with two markedly different emotions.

Part of her wants to pat her on the head and coo. Like a child, she is. Such a child. Another part of her is overwhelmed with the sudden desire to play poker with her. She wants to look her in her emerald eyes, lie blatantly and clean her out.

She wants to shield her from the harsh realities of the world. She wants to strip her of her ideals, of her foolishness, and force her to see the world for what it is: in all its ugliness, in all its splendor.

The two ideals clash together and jar in Shizuru's mind.

She does not know what she wants.

Her head is pounding like a jackhammer, yet she simply takes a steadying breath and readjusts her mask before slipping it immaculately back into place.

"And I'm afraid that's all you're getting out of me." Shizuru smiles then, charming and disarming, with an undercurrent of something dangerous and even Natsuki knows not to press her luck.

10.

Feeling claustrophobic, Shizuru slips out to get a breath of fresh air. She needs to sort through her thoughts and come up with her next course of action, but instead, all she does is walk idly about the compound.

Her body is exhausted, and yet her mind remains ever restless. She is in dire need of a distraction. She plucks dandelions and puffs to scatter the seeds. She skips rocks into a small pond, terrorizing a family of ducks in the process. She apologizes on instinct when they scatter and take flight, but a part of her envies them, and so she stops for a bit, to revel in the sight of their escape. Then she resumes her attempt to break her current stone skipping record.

All these juvenile things, she's never done since she was a little girl. Good grief, what now? She thinks. Is she in the midst of a pre-mature midlife crisis on top of everything else?

She decides to chalk her childishness up to exhaustion, though she mentally files away that thought for reference at a later date. With that in mind, she continues nudging touch-me-nots close with a foot, in the process, unconsciously following a trail until it leads her to a quaint wooden bench under a grand old willow tree.

She'll close her eyes for bit, and sort things out later, is what she thinks, as she takes a load off her feet. But she's tired. More tired than she's ever been before. In the end, she's lulled to sleep by the gentle rustling of the leaves, courtesy of a summer breeze.

When she stirs from slumber, the sun is bleeding into the night and Natsuki is beside her with a cup of something warm, and a blanket drawn between them. Evenings in the countryside are surprisingly chilly, Shizuru thinks, despite the god-awful afternoon heat.

"You were shivering." Natsuki says evenly, though she does not look over. Her eyes are fixed upon the horizon, on the mesh of colors, reds and blues and all the different hues in-between blending in with each other. It is the end of the show, but the curtain has yet to fall.

Wordlessly, Natsuki passes over the mug, and Shizuru receives it with a grateful smile. She cups the mug with her palms, pleased with the source of warmth.

Shizuru lets out a grand sigh, "I missed the sunset."

Natsuki shrugs, "There'll be other sunsets."

Her catnap, it appears, had only incubated her headache. There is something stuck in her head, a constant pounding that will not relent, and her stomach churns, a tumulus sea of store-bought snack-foods and stale ohagi.

As always, Shizuru pushes these things down.

"I'm sorry, but might I know where's the toilet?"

"It's the second room from the right when you enter from the back. Come on, I'll show you."

"That's alright. I'll manage."

That is a bold-faced lie. Shizuru isn't alright at all.

She rises, takes a step forward, and suddenly loses her orientation. Her limbs feel like jelly. Her head feels like lead. Shizuru needs to sit down. She needs to lie down, in fact, and sleep for more than an hour at a stretch.

"Hey, are you okay?"

Natsuki jumps to her feet to try and steady her, but their uncoordinated movements cause the blanket to tangle about their feet, and Natsuki trips, somehow managing to bang her head on the coarse bark of the tree. She seethes, rubbing her bruised forehead with the back of her palm, and Shizuru would giggle if it weren't for her vertigo.

"W-what! Shizuru!"

Such a waste, Shizuru thinks with a grimace when the world tilts and the warm cup of tea slips out from her limp hands. And then her world fades to inky blackness.

11.

Shizuru bobs up from under the sea of oblivion and finds herself in the midst of a fever-dream.

The sun hangs, high and harsh in the sky, and around her, a barren wasteland of red-brown sand stretches endlessly into the horizon. She has no recollection of who she is or how she ended up smack dab in the middle of this strange desert.

All she knows is that her throat is parched beyond all reason and her tongue feels like sandpaper. All she knows is that if she does not move, she will die here, in the middle of nowhere, where nobody will have the decency to bury her sorry bag of bones.

The winds howl, and Shizuru raises a hand in a paltry attempt to shield her eyes from being buffeted by the sand. If she looks behind her, she will see a great mushroom cloud of a sandstorm. If she stops she will be consumed.

And so she walks forward, driven by the will to survive, because anything is better than simply curling up and dying in this godforsaken place. Action holds the potential for change, inaction the certainty of decay.

She walks, and walks and walks. Her footsteps start off determined and purposeful, then slowly degenerates into a weary trudge. She does not know how much time passes, when suddenly a shadow looms at her periphery. For the first time since she started walking, she tears her gaze away from the horizon, to regard her new companion.

It's a curious thing, an enormous serpent, bigger than she. It does not slither, instead, it bites its tail, and moves in a cartwheel. In her dream, for some reason, this seems completely normal.

Shizuru pays it no mind. To be honest, she could really use a bit of company, especially in such a grim environment. Shizuru, the Shizuru beyond the realm of dreams, has always liked snakes.

They stop at the edge of a great precipice.

She kneels down close to the edge, and chucks down a moderately-sized stone, trying to gauge the distance of the drop. In Shizuru's mind, making conversation with a giant cartwheeling snake seems the next perfectly logical course of action.

"It must be hard to talk with your tail constantly in your mouth."

"You get usssed to it."

The snake lets go of its tail, and coils itself like a rope. It sticks out a forked tongue, tasting the air, gauging, with it, temperature and direction.

"Where are we, anyway?"

It gives the closest approximation a snake can give to shrug, then hisses."Doesssss it matter?"

She takes a seat precariously near the edge, then draws her legs up to her chest and leans her chin on her knees.

No, she supposes, it does not.

In a while, they will try to scale down. But for now they'll just wait until they hear the rock hit the ground. It is the end of the road, but not their journey.

12.

She wakes in a warm bed, with a cool, damp cloth on her forehead and a splitting headache.

Where in the world is she? What in the world happened?

Groaning, she looks down at herself and notices she's in a loose tee. She clasps a hand to her chest and sighs in relief at the chain still hanging around her neck. Well, Shizuru concludes, at least she hasn't been mugged.

"You're more trouble than you're worth, you know?"

She turns her head to see Natsuki standing in the doorway with a tray of soup and some bread. Two plasters hold a square-cut pad of gauze to her forehead. Oh, she remembers that at least. It looks like quite a serious bump.

"Ara," she says, exerting great effort to sit up in bed. Her muscles ache at every movement and her throat feels scratchy and raw. "Did Natsuki spike the tea and have her way with me?"

The tray tips precariously, and the bowl of soup, utensils and plate of bread crash into each other like passengers aboard a ferry on bumpy waters. Soup drips over the rim, and splotches onto the smooth wooden floor. Man overboard! A small part of Shizuru childishly exclaims in her head.

"Wh-what! Why would I do that!" Shizuru looks into her clear green eyes and at the blush creeping all the way to the tips of Natsuki's ears and knows this to be true. "You-you fainted. And I live down the hall from a doctor. You're a fugitive, right? I thought the hospital would be a bad idea…"

Her reasoning had seemed perfectly logical to Natsuki at that time, but now, she realizes how her actions could be so understandably yet frustratingly misconstructed. That would certainly explain the disapproving glances and…waggling eyebrows of some of her neighbors when she carried Shizuru into the apartment complex. She groans, and is overwhelmed by the sudden desire to bang her head repeatedly against the wall until she blacks out.

Commendably, she resists the urge to do so presses on. "You should get more rest. Dr. Sagisawa said you're suffering from fatigue and an onset of the flu."

Good news: turns out it wasn't a midlife crisis after all! Huzzah. The flu comes as a surprise to her though. Oh well, one out of two. Shizuru knows herself that well, at least.

She sighs, drags herself out of bed and slips into some embarrassingly adorable fuzzy slippers. "Natsuki has been nothing less than hospitable. But I'm afraid I will have to refuse. I shan't impose on you any longer."

"You're not imposi-Hey! Where do you think you're going? Get back in bed!"

She quickly lays the tray of food on the living room table, then dashes in front of the door to bar her from making her exit.

"Look, I don't know how you do things in the city, but in my house, sick people forfeit all rights to argue!" Her palms are flat against the door behind her, and emerald eyes flash in angry determination.

Shizuru laughs. "I can take care of myself, Natsuki."

Natsuki scoffs at her reasoning and crosses her arms. "Like hell I'll buy that! You fainted on me. Twice! When I brought you back here, you wandered off, threw up on my landlord's petunia patch, and fainted again!"

Well, she certainly doesn't recall that, though she wouldn't put it past her in her current condition. As if on cue, Shizuru sneezes, incriminating her further. She quietly curses her impeccable timing.

Shizuru lets out a long-drawn out sigh.

"Be reasonable. I feel much better now." She says, before reaching out for the doorknob.

Natsuki slaps away her hand without batting an eye. ''Says the girl trying to make a getaway in my fuzzy bedroom slippers!"

Cradling her wrist, she opens her mouth to rebut, but pauses to look down at her current attire, from the over-sized tee and sweat-pants, to said fuzzy bedroom slippers. Shizuru glares accusingly at the heads of the fuzzy cartoon dog heads for enmeshing her further in this predicament… and they answer with the same innocent and blank-eyed stare.

"I'm holding your car and whatever you have in your car political hostages until you submit, Shizuru."

Life under a totalitarian regime sucked ass, Shizuru surmised with a grimace. As Shizuru pinches her nose to quell her runny nose, Natsuki issues her final ultimatum.

"If you don't get back into bed right now, I'm calling Dr. Sagisawa over to give you a piece of her mind!" Her eyes narrow in what could either be a squint or a glare, maybe both, and she raises her index finger in an effort to intimidate her. "I'll carry you if I have to! I mean it."

Frustrating though it may be, Shizuru also thinks her entire tirade incredulous, amusing, and kind of endearing, really. Honestly, the lengths this girl would go to for a complete stranger; Shizuru doesn't know what to say. A heart of gold and a head full of straw indeed.

Against such an individual, even Shizuru, with her silver tongue, is at a loss for words. She raises both hands in the air in a gesture of surrender and says no more.

13.

"So… Chicken soup for the soul?" She stirs the soup with a spoon and regards her with a curious and bemused expression like no other.

From her vantage point at the edge of the bedroom, Natsuki shrugs."I promised Dr. Sagisawa that I wouldn't cook… " She rubs the back of her neck sheepishly. "Look, it was all I had in the pantry, okay? Stop giving me that look."

Shizuru points a finger at herself innocently as if to say, 'who, moi?' But her lips remain curved up in a cheeky smile, while an eyebrow is now raised in curious bemusement. From embarrassment, or agitation, Shizuru does not know, but Natsuki's cheeks color the most endearing shade of red.

"Natsuki, why are you blushing?"

"I don't know, alright?" Natsuki huffs, swinging her hands up in the air in exasperation. "Quit giving me that damned look already!"

"Fret not, my dear. You look good in red." Shizuru quips with a wink.

Her infuriatingly smug grin only widens when the color of Natsuki's cheeks darken a shade and she looks away, grumbling.

"I liked you better when you were out cold."

Payback can assume many, many forms. This particular flavor just happened to be very, very sweet.

14.

Shizuru manages to drink a third of the soup and eat a bite or two of the slice of bread before losing her appetite entirely. When exhaustion sets in once more, she burrows back under the warm comforter like a mole escaping a predator.

A minute ticks by, then five, and Shizuru lets out another sigh. She's been doing that quite a lot lately, she's noticed.

"You don't have to watch me like a hawk, Natsuki. I'm not going anywhere soon."

Natsuki crosses her arms and huffs, "Oh no, I'm not falling for that again. The one time I turned my back on someone I wasn't supposed to, my crazy underclassman raided the chemistry lab and set fire to the school pool."

Shizuru laughs. "You seem to attract some very interesting people, Natsuki."

There is a pause, and Shizuru is sure she hears Natsuki mutter under her breath, "Weirdos, more like."

Shizuru giggles softly in response, but her tone turns serious when she regards Natsuki once more. "I'm sorry you got hurt because of me, Natsuki. I'll make it up to you, I promise."

Natsuki shoots her a bewildered look, and Shizuru answers by raising her hand in the shape of a gun, and aiming it at the makeshift cross hairs of the bandage covering Natsuki's forehead.

"Bang." She says out loud.

She blows into a make-believe finger-barrel, then descends into a fit of giggles as she lowers her deadly, deadly firearm.

Natsuki scoffs and looks away to conceal her embarrassed blush, mumbles out, "I'll hold you to it, then."

"Pardon? I didn't catch that."

Natsuki clears her throat and walks towards the bedside table to survey the medication. "I said, 'what the hell do they put in these pills?' ."

* * *

And that is the end of chapter 2, or as I'd like to call it, Shizuru tripping serious balls. I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you all for the reviews for the previous chapter :)

Snakes are like… Shizuru's spirit animal or something. So, how's the pacing? Too slow? Too fast? O: There's this song by Andrew Bird called Eyeoneye. Check it out if you're free. It doesn't have much bearing on the chapter cause I found it after I finished writing it, but, well, nice song. Kinda reminds me of Natsuki. Or Shizuru, for that matter.


	3. Chapter 3

Direction is a tricky thing to gauge.  
A step forward can mean a step back when viewed in retrospect.  
A step forward could end with you face first on the floor, with none to blame, but yourself.  
But because the only sure product of inaction is decay, the only course of action to take, is action itself.

15.

Shizuru wakes in a warm, non-so-strange bed filled with a profound sense of wellbeing. She slips out from under the covers and stretches languidly like a cat.

She looks around, then down at herself, nose wrinkling at the unruly state of the room, and her current state of dress. All around her are strewn clothes and books, interjected here and there by some nuts and bolts, a wayward wrench and the occasional empty packet of snack food. Near the television is a playstation 3 and a stack of DVDs.

And…was that a lacy, black bra she spied hanging off the vanity?

It's not a small apartment, but it wasn't particularly big either, though its state of messiness makes it feel more like a den than anything else.

Her fingers twitch at the urge to do some tidying up, but she refrains on the grounds that she holds no authority here, no right. She owes her bill of health to Natsuki's hospitality, the least she could do was to respect her boundaries. She's a guest here at best, and a freeloader at worst. Let her not forget that.

At the very least, she still has the liberty to control the actions pertaining to herself. So she decides on a shower instead, and a change of clothes while she's at it. Natsuki shouldn't mind her using the bathroom. After all, she's already taken up residency on her bed.

16.

She takes a quick, invigorating shower and changes into a pilfered white blouse and some shorts. It's tight in the chest area, but other than that, the clothes are a reasonable fit.

She holds a hand out in front of her mouth, breaths out, then blanches at her reflection in the mirror of the sink. Rancid. It is as if something had crawled into the back of her throat and died there. Her next dilemma comes when it's time to brush her teeth. In a glass cup, a pale blue toothbrush innocently rests with a tube of toothpaste. She fills the cup full of tap water, then lays out all three items on the counter, setting them side-by-side in a neat line.

Dare she?

Her lips purse into a thin line as she grabs the toothbrush and the toothpaste, squeezing a generous portion onto the toothbrush.

Dare she?

She stares at the toothbrush, then at the reflection of herself in the mirror as she inches the toothpaste closer to her mouth.

What if Natsuki has gingivitis?

She pauses for a beat, and thinks back to Natsuki's rare, but commendably bright flash of her pearly whites when they were talking in the repair shop. She immediate dismisses that fear, and just when she's about to make contact, she spies a disposable toothbrush perched precariously over the edge of the shelf. A whole bunch of them, stored in another cup.

Oh. Well, that was a freebie.

17.

When she's done, she walks over to the far corner of the room to open a window. The summer wind makes the curtains billow like the sails of a ship, and Shizuru looks out, admiring the view and beyond, smiling as the breeze tousles her hair. It's a peaceful neighborhood. Scenic even. Lined with trees and chirping birds and well-kept lawns. It fits the posters of the countryside real estate agents put up to attract wealthy businessmen who want to escape from the city.

But a taste of the outside is not enough, and she longs to wander. After all, wasn't this what it was all about? Her Great Escape: an adventure into the great unknown; a journey of self-discovery. She longs to do all the things she has always wanted to, but never got the chance, never found the time. She wants to lounge under the canopy of trees, sipping a cup of tea, idling the day away. She wants to go to the beach, build grand castles, leave behind footprints and dig her toes deep into the sand.

She wants to stay for the sunset and watch the tide wash it all away.

It sounds foolish when she thinks about it now… but she can't help but act, regardless.

With a hand braced on the side of the door and the other on its tarnished brass knob, she pauses, a step short from exiting, and considers things. She could just slip away like this, out the door, out of another life.

She looks down at her borrowed slippers, trampling all over the welcome mat. It would be easy. Far too easy.

She lets out a long and heavy breath. But what good would it do? And where in Japan is she, anyway? She's never even heard of Fuuka before happened upon it.

Besides, Natsuki still has her stuff held ransom. And it certainly would not do, high-tailing it out into the world decked in fuzzy cartoon slippers. She wiggles her toes for added effect, and the fabric wrinkles and ripples, the animal's expression contorting into a wiggly grin.

A snort interrupts further rumination.

She looks up from her feet and spots Natsuki spread-eagled out over the couch, quietly snoring. Before quietly slipping out the door, she gives a small smile and an amused laugh.

She'll go for a walk instead, she decides, another idle stroll, and see first-hand where her legs take her.

18.

She has a hand poised over the knob of the backdoor when she spies the most peculiar thing.

The first thing she that catches her eyes is the afro. Then comes the gardening tools, followed by the crying. In a quaint garden, a portly man is on his knees bemoaning the great injustice that has befallen his beloved, prize-winning bed of flowers. Shizuru learns many things from his tirade. She learns that Petunias grow best in the sun, but will do okay in the shade. She learns that the poor man's reign of glory has come to an abrupt end, and as a result he has sworn revenge on the perpetrator of this heinous crime. She learns the most important lesson of all: that puking on flowers is bad. Very, very bad.

So those are the putative petunias! Shizuru thinks to herself, also, _oh dear_. She brings a hand up to cup her cheek. She supposes she'll have to do something to make up for that, but for now, she'll do the sensible thing. That is to say, she'll high-tail it out of that joint, before she gets caught red-handed. After all, what do they always say? The culprit always returns to the scene of the crime.

She backs away with the softest of footfalls that would put the meekest of house-mice to shame, and do even the famous sneak-thief Ishikawa Goemon proud. When she's out of both eyeshot and earshot, she swallows the lump in her throat, does an about turn, then crashes, quite literally, into someone.

Two foreheads clash together and two people double back in pain.

Ishikawa Goemon's undoing was the bell he knocked over during his infiltration of Fushimi Castle.

Fujino Shizuru's undoing came when she head butted a red-haired drunk.

"Ugh, what a way to start the day." The person groans and cracks open one blood-shot green eye to appraise her.

She squints, and raises an empty sake bottle she just so happened to have on hand, to tap herself on the head. "Hey, you seem familiar. Have I seen you before somewhere? Passed out on the floor maybe?"

"I'm afraid you're mistaken." She fumbles for a plausible explanation.

She's clinched deals with multinational corporations, been the kaicho of her high school for four consecutive years, and she fumbles now? Of all times. _Now_, when she's confronted by one hung-over woman?

She looks over the woman's shoulder and tries to draw inspiration from some of the magazines strewn on the counter.

Kamen Rider.  
Scantily clad ladies posing on fast bikes.  
10 Steps to a Healthy, Happy Garden.  
Shonen Jump.

Not helping, universe. Not helping at all. She thinks in a state of escalating panic. Just what was with their magazine selection?

She blurts out the next thing she sees, "I'm the new maid."

She bites her tongue immediately after she closes her mouth. Oh great. Just great. Of all the things, she could have said. She tells herself to take comfort in the small fact that at least she didn't say she was something ridiculous, like a gundam, or a magical girl.

"Wow, we have a maid?"

You do now, Shizuru thinks.

"Yes." Outwardly, she bows respectfully, and even throws in a small curtsey thereafter. Is that what maids are supposed to do? It's been so long, she's forgotten. "Pleased to make your acquaintance."

"Haha. Wow! Just like in the anime." The woman grins, wide and excited. She pauses for a contemplative moment, scratches the back of her neck with the empty bottle, then says, "Hey, I know you're a maid, but you don't have to be so formal."

"Sugiura Midori by the way! But you can call me Midori. I'm seventeen!" She exclaims enthusiastically, as she puts out her hand, and her smile is bright enough to offset the bloodshot eyes and disheveled fiery red hair. Midori tilts her head expectantly to the side.

Shizuru's eyes dart back toward the counter, then she pauses. Look at where lying got you, Shizuru, she berates herself. Mentally, she comes to a conclusion: When in doubt, tell the truth, or well, at least the bits you're willing to part with.

"Nice to meet you, Midori-san. My name is Shizuru." Shizuru reaches out and gives a firm handshake. Then her amiable smile morphs into a teasing grin when she says, "Aren't you a little too young to be drinking?"

Midori blinks, stunned for a bit, but she recovers quickly enough, and lets loose another hearty chuckle.

"A maid with a sense of humor! I like you already!" She slaps her affably on the back, unintentionally knocking the air out of Shizuru's lungs.

"Hey, mind doing me a favor by taking these mags up to their owners?" She points a thumb behind. "I'm going out for a bit. Ran outta supplies for a hangover cure."

Shizuru smiles pleasantly, "No problem."

Midori shoots her a grateful smile."Thanks. Ah, I've got the otaku-ones covered, and Sakomizu'll get his gardening one when he's done playing in the dirt. The bike one's for the second last door on the left on the second floor, and the manga is for the door opposite it."Thanks again, Shizuru."Midori smiles again, and like a hurricane, she sweeps out of the backdoor.

Shizuru walks over to sort them out before scooping them up into her arms. Oh, a new season of Nodame Cantabile, that's good to note.

Well, that wasn't so bad, she concludes in retrospect as she starts ascending the stairs.

19.

She lays the other magazines on a neat pile before a door, and when she returns to Natsuki's apartment, she isn't all that surprised to find Natsuki still dozing on the couch.

She wiggles her toes on the carpeted floor and looks bemusedly up at the adorable sight of Natsuki sprawled over the couch. Her left hand hangs limply over the edge, and every so often, her right leg will twitch. With her eyebrows scrunched together and the slight pout of her mouth, it looks like she's thinking very hard about something.

Shizuru crouches to meet Natsuki's face at eye level, then, she reaches out one tentative finger to poke her cheek, just to see what will happen. Natsuki's cheeks puff out in annoyance, and a hand rises to bat Shizuru's finger away. Then the moment passes and Natsuki rolls over and lets out a sigh.

"Mayo…" She mutters under her breath.

Mayo? What a curious reaction. Shizuru mentally jots down the response, then makes her way to the kitchen to whip something up.

20.

It's a modest kitchen, with a stove, a refrigerator and a dish-washer, though she suspects the former has been much neglected.

She circles the perimeter, and as she does so, she touches the countertops, and cupboards, tracing aged woodgrain, scratched surfaces and peeling paint. Beneath her fingertips, the dips, and imperfections splay out like braille, a secret language she is free to admire but not privy to understand.

She reach out to grab the singed ends of a kitchen curtain and feels the fabric between finger and thumb, trying to fill in the blanks. She looks up at the charcoaled ceiling over the stove and imagines the black mushroom cloud of soot that must have formed, imagines the panic Natsuki must have experienced, running around frantically in an admirable but ultimately vain attempt to extinguish the flames.

When she spots a fire-extinguisher in an easy-to-access place, near the dustbin, Shizuru laughs to herself, a secret joke. Cause and effect. That's how things usually worked. People learn when they get burned, after all.

She opens the refrigerator door and the first thing she sees is three bottles of mayonnaise, lined up neatly in one row, like soldiers standing at attention. She picks through the meager selection and makes a mental registry of the items which are…actually, sadly, just two bars of green tea KitKat, a couple of eggs, a bottle of soy sauce and one particularly sad, and wilting stalk of celery. The crisper is fully stocked though. And Shizuru supposes that she has the gardener to thank for the produce.

Natsuki's dietary patterns leave much to be desired. Which was an irony in itself given the girl's figure, but that was a thought best left on the back burner, at least for now. There was no point in repaying Natsuki's hospitality - forced though it may be - with petty envy. Besides, Shizuru thinks, tracing the path of an idle thought onto its crux, at least she has bigger boobs.

The cupboards aren't much better. One particular cupboard was stocked with can after can of Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup. Shizuru lays one hand over her mouth to keep herself from gagging. There was only so much chicken soup a sick person could take. Shizuru closes that particular cupboard very gently, takes half step back and off to the side, and pretends she didn't see a thing. How in the world did Natsuki manage to get her hands on that much foreign soup, anyway? Shizuru thinks incredulously. Whatever happened to Japanese protectionism?

She heaves a sigh of relief when she comes across a bag of flour and some rice in the next cupboard, and decides all is not lost after all, and that they will have tempura for lunch.

21.

With the food laid out and the table set, Shizuru returns once more to resume her endeavor to wake Natsuki up. She crouches low so she is at eye-level with Natsuki's sleeping face. Up close, she can see every subtle change in her expression and make more sense of every mumbled world. It appears that at this very point in time, Natsuki is very engrossed in a dream.

She tosses around, grabs a cushion, then snuggles into it.

A grunt, and she mumbles out, "Vanquish… evil anti-mayo horde."

At that, an idea lights up in Shizuru's head. Wearing a sly smirk, she sneaks away and quickly returns with a jar of mayonnaise. Armed and ready, she crouches near Natsuki once more.

"Fair knight, it is I, the Mayo King." Shizuru booms, in what she hopes is a grandiose and adequately kingly manner.

Natsuki's eyebrows furrow together perplexedly. "Why…d'you sound..so girly?"

Shizuru attempts to lower her voice even more, making it as deep and gruff as she possibly can. "All will be revealed in due time, brave…warrior. You must trust me, Natsuki."

Natsuki grunts in affirmation.

Shizuru unscrews the jar of mayonnaise and holds it out, right beneath Natsuki's nose. "Can you smell it, Natsuki? The mayo kingdom lies just beyond the horizon! Our crusade is over!"

"Nnmph."

"Now roll, soldier! Roll and you shall be rewarded"

Natsuki rolls unerringly, lands with a flop onto the carpet and wakes with a jolt. "Ouch" is the first thing she says, rubbing her sore behind.

"Mayo king? What? Shizuru?"

Bleary eyes circle the area, and slowly but surely, realization dawns. When Natsuki recovers from her stupor, she glares daggers at the crouched figure of Shizuru snickering at her.

"Shizuru!" She rises with an indignant yell, grabs the cushion she had been snuggling with moments before, and chucks it at Shizuru with all the fury she can muster. It hits Shizuru square in the face, and then it is Shizuru's turn to crash to the carpet, though she does not cease her incessant giggling as she does so.

Natsuki keeps up her deadliest variation of the Kuga Death Glare, for a good minute longer, before she realizes it has no effect on Shizuru, who is too busy wiping the tears out of the corner of her eyes from laughing to notice. Then Natsuki sits crossed-legged on the carpet grumbling and huffing, busying herself with trying to find another cushion to launch at Shizuru's infuriating face.

Their cold war - on Natsuki's part - melts into a truce when Shizuru steps into Natsuki's line of vision with her peace-offering of a bottle of mayo and the promise of lunch. She huffs at the cheeky smile on Shizuru's face, but takes her outstretched hand nonetheless.

After Natsuki finishes giving her a long, stern lecture on the virtues of mayo and why it should never be abused, they sit down to have breakfast, which, at that point in time, was essentially lunch. Their combined hunger helped to speed up peace processes. It's hard to wage war on an empty stomach.

22.

Natsuki eagerly spoons out a large goop of the white substance out and onto her plate, then holds out the jar generously to Shizuru with a childish, goofy grin, previous dispute entirely forgotten.

Shizuru smiles appreciatively, but is still skeptical about the gooey substance, and so raises a hand to politely decline. "No, thank you, Natsuki."

Natsuki shrugs. "Alright, but you don't know what you're missing."

Natsuki dips a piece of fried eggplant into the mayo, takes a tentative bite out of it, and then proceeds to scarf down the entire meal like a man that's been stuck on a desert island for about six months. She goes back for a second helping of rice, then a third. After which, she sinks down onto the back of her chair and pats her stomach in satisfaction.

"Did Natsuki like the meal?" Shizuru asks, though she already knows the answer.

Natsuki responds with a burp. She blushes, covers her mouth embarrassedly with her hand and apologizes for her bad manners,"I haven't had a meal like that in ages. Thank you, Shizuru."

Shizuru gives a pleased smile."I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Sheepish, Natsuki scratches her cheek with her forefinger, "I didn't think you could cook, you know? Sorry I doubted you."

"It's quite alright. I don't consider myself prime housewife material either." Shizuru gives a good natured laugh. After which, she pauses for bit and assuming a thoughtful expression, raises a finger to her lip. "Desire necessitates action, I suppose. If I don't cook, no one else will."

A question hang on the tip of her tongue, begging to be asked, about Natsuki's own…domestic qualifications, or, more accurately, their lack thereof. But Shizuru decides to cut Natsuki some slack, at least for now, and not rile Natsuki up any more than she already has.

...For now. After all, there's a limit to how red a person a person can get in so much time. So instead, she tries to steer the conversation into calmer waters. The kiddy pool, perhaps.

"Oh! I forgot." Shizuru rises from the chair, and comes back with a magazine. On the cover of the magazine, a scantily clad lady smiles sensuously at a masked rider on a Kawasaki Ninja 650 as she tries to hitch a ride.

"I didn't know these are Natsuki's type." Shizuru says teasingly, clutching the magazines with two hands and raising the magazine such that it covers her cheeky grin.

"Where did you get that?" Natsuki springs out of the chair and snatches it from her, cheeks burning. "I'm only reading it for the articles, dammit!"

She tucks the magazine into a back pocket and grumbles. "It's not my fault some meatheads can't appreciate the beauty of fine machinery. What were you doing up so early, anyway?"

Shizuru raises one eyebrow in amusement, "Natsuki, when I woke up, the sun was already shining on your rump."

"Well, that's not the point!" Natsuki bristles, brushing the comment aside and trying to will the redness to recede from her face. "What if you fainted on the stairs! Or worse! In the toilet. Oh god."

"Natsuki should stop treating me like a glass figurine. "

"Hey, can you blame me? You fainted on me, twice!"

Shizuru sighs. "You're never going to let that go, are you?"

Natsuki shrugs."Not anytime soon. Not until you've fully recovered, at least. Don't do that, okay? What if something happened to you?"

"Ara, ara. Yes, esteemed mother. "Shizuru reinforces her petulance with an exaggerated roll of her eyes.

As if on cue Shizuru sneezes. Curse her her sinuses' repeated treachery!

"Oh, real mature, Shizuru. See?" Natsuki crosses her arms and frowns.

She has that sharp glint in her emerald eyes again,and Shizuru knows that yet again, she's not getting out of this with her tongue.

23.

With a deadly cocktail of both coercive and intimidating tactics, Natsuki manages to somehow coax Shizuru back into bed. Natsuki hands her a glass of warm water and her medication, and Shizuru pops two pills and washes them downs with a big gulp of water. It tastes horrible, but she supposes that's the way things are. Bitter pills to swallow and all those other proverbs.

"What happened to Natsuki's band-aid?" Shizuru gestures to Natsuki's bare and still bruised forehead in inquiry.

Natsuki grimaces and unconsciously raises a hand to rub the sore spot. "It was just a bump, so I took it off. I felt ridiculous wearing it. And I looked even more ridiculous then I felt."

"Ara, I'll really miss those cross-hairs. Where will I aim now?" Shizuru says with a pout.

"Put your finger down and get some rest already." Natsuki clasps her raised hands and pull them down before she has the chance to form them into the shape of a gun.

Natsuki's lugged over a dining chair to the side of the bed. She sits with the motorcycle magazine on her lap and an arm leaning on the bedside table.

"For a sick person, you sure are energetic." She deadpans, with a sigh, covering half her face with a hand.

"Ookini, Natsuki. I'll take that as a compliment." Shizuru scoots over in the bed, angling her head in a bid to get a glimpse inside the magazine. "What's so fascinating about those articles, Natsuki?" Shizuru asks from out of the blue. "Enlighten me. Kuga-sensei."

Natsuki laughs. "I'm just a rookie mechanic, Shizuru. And it's really complicated. You wouldn't get the appeal."

She waves her off, and Shizuru pouts.

"Natsuki, I have a masters degree in business administration. Give me some credit."

"Alright, alright. But don't blame me when you get bored, alright?"

It isn't exactly prime bedtime story material, but they make do with what life throws at them.

In the end, it's so filled with technical jargon that Shizuru honestly has no idea what she's talking about. But the tone of Natsuki's voice, the low and gruff quality, like the steady hum of an engine, succeeds in drawing her into a lull.

For the second time, Shizuru finds herself falling to sleep to the sound of Natsuki's voice.

Natsuki draws the covers up past Shizuru's shoulders, and tucks stray strands of her hair behind her ear. After which, she steps back for a bit, to take everything in.

The day has passed them by in the blink of an eye. Talk about lazy Saturday afternoons. All she's done is lounge around indoors: talked and eaten, berated and gotten made fun of. Yet strangely, it didn't feel like an afternoon wasted.

She looks back at Shizuru's prone form once more before she switches off the bedside lamp. "Yep, I like you better when you're sleeping."

"Ikezu…"Shizuru mumbles out, before snuggling into the warmth of the blankets.

24.

"It's funny. I've been here for days, and I never knew what the house looked like until I'm about to leave." Shizuru speaks this in awe, beholding the house from the outside for the very first time, like a goldfish looking at its bowl from the outside in. It felt so much bigger when she was in it.

The word quaint comes to mind, but she pushes it aside, it is far too distinct for such a flat designation. It's grand its own way. Old, but not ancient. Set in it's way in terms of fundamental architecture, but not opposed to bending to accommodate the changing times, as exemplified by the solar cells installed onto the roof.

Creepers have crawled their way up the north side of its face, like the spindly, blue blooded varicose veins of an elderly matron, and if she squints, she can spy some birds nesting in the hollows near the roof tiles. It feels like the house has a life of it's own, though it doesn't so much breathe as it wheezes.

Right now, Shizuru's back in her own clothing. Namely, the same threads she wore when she was first brought here. Natsuki's wearing her mechanic uniform too. Its long loose sleeves are tied around her waist, exposing her tank top. Today, the color is green.

In a way, it is funny. It's as if no time has elapsed since their initial encounter up to this very point. It's only been two days. How much has changed? How much has stayed the same?

Natsuki scoffs. "It's a house. It's not going anywhere. It's been here since before I was born, and will probably still be standing even after that. Old, rickety thing."

She throws a perfunctory kick to the wooden stairs of the front porch to punctuate her statement, and they groan helplessly in response.

"I know, but still. It's a lovely place, with lovely people." Well, she's only met two of them so far, but they seem nice enough, oaths of revenge aside. She's yet to thank the good doctor too, because she's never actually met her.

"Try living here ten years, and then we'll see if you feel the same way, alright? The radiators are stifling. The people are nuts."

Shizuru heaves a wistful sigh and imagines, even going so far as to cup a hand to cheek.

"Quit being so maudlin." Natsuki rubs her neck sheepishly, and looks away."Look, you can come visit, alright? "

"Ara, Natsuki is blushing again. So cute." Shizuru smiles, full of mirth.

"I'm- Agh! Look, just forget it!"Natsuki snaps, tossing her the helmet and storming off angrily towards her Ducati.

Shizuru catches it with ease, laughing all the while at Natsuki's huffy exit. Ah, she's ruffled her feathers yet again. She can't help it. Natsuki's reactions were too amusing to resist.

...She really will miss it here.

She's tempted to tour the gardens to round up her exit, but a sense of propriety - alright, she'll admit it, shame - keeps that urge in check. Instead, she downs her last cup of tea, one for the road, disposes of the styrofoam cup neatly into a trashcan, and then makes her way over to Natsuki, who is already waiting on her bike.

She had left a letter under Natsuki's pillow, a token of both apology and gratitude. It's not much, but maybe that will do. It's selfish, but a part of her wants Natsuki to remember her, after all, Shizuru knows she'll never forget the brash younger woman for all that she is and all that she's done. Shizuru wants to be grounded in Natsuki's reality, wants to be more than the ghost of a thought the next time Natsuki bites into some tempura or falls sick with the cold. But a letter is all she can manage. Even so, it's written it using borrowed stationary, though she doubts Natsuki will mind that small little detail.

Shizuru mounts the bike wordlessly, and just before Natsuki can retract the kick-stand, Shizuru envelops her in a bear hug from behind. Her hands are at her ribcage, her head is at the junction between Natsuki's head and neck, and the helmet Natsuki handed her is laid on Natsuki's front lap.

And then Shizuru says, voice soft but resolute, "Don't be angry. I really will miss it here. Thank you, Natsuki. For all your hospitality, for your kindness, for everything. I will miss you most of all."

Shizuru tries to pour all her emotions into her hug and her words. Her breath tickles Natsuki's ear, and her proximity fills Natsuki with warmth, yet prompts all the fine invisible hairs on the back of Natsuki's neck to stand at attention. When Natsuki raises her visor, and angles her head backwards to look Shizuru in the eye, she's greeted with the warmest, most genuine smile she's ever seen on her.

Natsuki sucks in a sharp intake of breath. It is a breathtaking smile.

She grabs the helmet on her lap, and makes Shizuru put it on, and then she lowers the visor of her own helmet, so at least Shizuru wouldn't be able to see how much her face resembles a cherry. "You're a sentimental idiot, Shizuru. But I'm glad I met you."

Blushing to the tips of her ears, Natsuki revs up the engine and checking for one last time that Shizuru has a firm grip on her before she retracts the kick-stand and speeds off in one swift motion before Shizuru can open her mouth to give another smartass comment.

25.

They come back in an hour and a half on a beat-up pick-up truck.

Natsuki emerges first from the front seat and slams the door shut. Shizuru trails behind her, hands clasps behind her back, masking her presence by shadowing Natsuki's every footstep, wary of riling her up even more. Natsuki fetches Shizuru's gargantuan suitcase from the back of the pick-up and proceeds to lug it up the creaky steps of the front porch and into the house. Not caring the least bit about how it bangs into each stair.

When they enter the house, Natsuki turns around, narrows her eyes in what is either a squint or a glare, and utters just this, "I hate you, Shizuru. I really, really hate you."

"Kanin-na, Natsuki."

In the spirit of episode 26 of Mai-Hime and its 180 degree mood swing. Haha. All will be revealed in the next chapter. So…what are your views so far? I realize the genre tags may mislead some readers. Um, my bad. If there was a slice-of-life tag, it'd fit the bill. There's gonna be romance, adventure, humor and drama, I'm just not quite sure in what proportions.

Thanks to all those who reviewed. Anonymous reviewers too! Those who review like ninjas from the shadows. Ooh..[ Edit: Oh shit, I forgot to proofread it before initial submission. So many typos. My apologies! ]


	4. Chapter 4

If you have no target, you will hit the mark every time. If you have no destination in mind, you will never know where you are going. Up, down, left, right. There are so many parameters to consider. The possibilities are endless. They can liberate and they can restrain: give you wings or bear down on you like a crushing load.

It is all a matter of perspective.

The world is a big place. Who knows where you will end up.

26.

"It's awfully quiet here." Shizuru ghosts around the garage with her hands clasped behind her back, always looking, never touching. "Are you the owner of this establishment, Natsuki?

"No, I'm just a rookie. My boss and colleagues are away at a convention. It's a lull in the season, I'm just holding the fort till they get back."

Shizuru looks at her skeptically, "A convention for auto-mechanics?"

Natsuki shrugs her shoulders dismissively. "What? Blue collars have fancy seminars and conventions too."

Shizuru makes a noncommittal noise in the back of her throat. "Why didn't you go along with them? And what do they do there, anyway?

"No clue. I've never been. Never been interested either. I've never liked social gatherings."

"No, you?" Shizuru mock gasps, then covers her mouth politely with one hand. "I would have never thought."

"Har har, Shizuru. Very funny." Natsuki rolls her eyes. "Come and have a look. I've fixed your car."

"Good as new."

27.

Shizuru fishes a few ten thousand dollar yen notes out of her purse and lays it on the table, then she empties out her coin purse.

Natsuki looks down at the meager assortment of bills and frowns. She does not even deign a look at the small tower of coins. "It won't be enough to pay for the repairs."

"What if I throw in my purse?" Shizuru asks jokingly, wiggling the purse in the air as if the action would make the item a more alluring draw.

The action, good-natured though it may be, only manages to rile Natsuki up. "We don't barter here! Didn't you read the sign?" Natsuki points purposefully to the lopsided sign hanging on the far corner of the wall.

In bold, underlined twice, and with an exclamation point tacked to the end of the statement, the obnoxious sign reads: No cash, no credit, get out!

Cheery. Shizuru thinks haplessly.

There are two signs, in fact. Off to the side of the crooked sign, on a tabletop, an eerie and imposing figurine of a tanuki has a thumb pointed directly over its shoulder, at the door. There's just something about its serene expression that makes Shizuru very tempted to accidentally knock it off the table.

Alright, Shizuru thinks. Whoever made these signs really needsp to stop being such miserly prick and get a hobby. Something other than pottery. Gardening, perhaps. Supposedly, it's very therapeutic.

"Didn't you bring anything else with you? Credit cards? Your checkbook?" Natsuki leans forward on the counter and looks dubiously up at Shizuru.

"Natsuki, money was the last thing on my mind. "Shizuru grimaces and takes to keeping all the laid out money to distract her. "Besides, making ends meet with money from my old life would only leave a bad taste in the mouth."

"Well, a bad aftertaste is better than starving!" Natsuki retaliates, incensed.

Natsuki slaps a palm to a forehead and drags it slowly down her face. She looks at Shizuru both pointedly and somberly. "What will I do with you?"

"Indulge me?"

Natsuki looks ready to blow a gasket.

28.

Shizuru excuses herself to fetch some water for them both and give Natsuki some time and space to cool down. She makes a quick detour to shoot the tanuki figurine one hell of a dirty look, and it answers with the same eerily serene expression, its thumb still pointing at the door. Shizuru has never liked raccoon-dogs, beloved figures of Japanese folklore though they may be.

Natsuki, it seems, is too caught up in her melancholy to pay her antics any mind.

When Shizuru returns from the water-cooler with two cheap plastic cups laid across each other on the countertop, they are back in the rink again, ready for round two. Natsuki has assumed a new position. She now slouches over the countertop with one hand propping up her head, while Shizuru, as ever, has her back straight and her palms flat upon the smooth woodgrain of the counter.

Ding-ding.

Natsuki downs the entire contents of the cup in one gulp, and then looks imploringly up at Shizuru. "What are you running from, Shizuru? I deserve to know at least that much."

If Natsuki wants the truth, Shizuru decides, then it is what she will give her. "An omiai."

"Isn't running away a little excessive? Can't you just turn them down?"

Shizuru bites her lip and looks away, out the dirt-stained window. "It's more complicated than that.''

Natsuki frowns. "Yeah? Well, escape artists die too, you know…"

"Yes, but everyone dies. Harry Houdini died from a ruptured appendix. I just… " Shizuru lets out a long sigh and worries the ends of her shirt in her hands."The omiai is just a formality."

"I'm twenty-four, Natsuki. They expect me to settle down with a complete stranger simply because it's a prudent business decision."

"All my life, I've done what they wanted. Become who they wanted me to be." She stops, bites her lip once more. It's a nervous tick, Natsuki's noticed. "Sometimes, when I look in a mirror, I _see_ a complete stranger. I needed to leave, Natsuki. I needed to get away before I lost sight of who I was completely."

Someone like Natsuki can't possibly understand. What would a soul unencumbered know of societal expectations? What would the girl with the fiery temper and unvarnished sincerity know of peer pressure to conform and achieve, of obligations and responsibility tethered to family names?

Natsuki's never been inhibited by societal expectations. She rides a bike for goodness' sake. She's a mechanic. She will glare and scowl and kick the shin of any who would so much as look at her the wrong way, at least that is what Shizuru would like to believe. It is a big world. It is a big enough country. Shizuru would like to believe someone out there is free.

Natsuki reaches out a hand to comfort her, but flinches away at the last minute, before making contact. She retracts her hand, clenches it into a fist on the table and lays another hand on top of it, to quell her urge to act. She looks hurt, looks lost.

Silly girl. Shizuru thinks. Why do you look so sad? You are not the one on trial here. You have done no wrong.

29.

The silence looms like an ominous presence between them. Shizuru would prefer it if someone screamed or shouted. She wants something to happen. Anything to interrupt the deadlock. Taking matters into her own hands, Shizuru reaches out to take a sip of the water and holds the cup a tad too tight just to hear the plastic crinkle. Just to convince herself the world hasn't stilled around them, beyond them.

For once, it appears her wishes are granted. When she sets the cup evenly back down, right back in its original spot, Natsuki starts to speak.

Her voice starts off as barely a whisper, then builds, gaining momentum and emotion with every uttered word. "How do I know you are who you claim to be, Shizuru?"

Her anger and frustration has built into a crescendo. The hands that had been poised to comfort Shizuru, lash out and confront her instead. Natsuki roughly clutches Shizuru's collar, forcing her up and onto her feet, "How do I know this isn't just some elaborate, fucked up lie?"

Natsuki's sudden movements cause Shizuru's cup to tip over onto its side, spilling water all over the countertop. Shizuru eyes it from the corner of her eye, watches as the cup rolls helplessly, perches precariously over the edge, then takes the final plunge. That's no good, Shizuru thinks. This type of wood isn't meant to absorb water.

Natsuki only grips her collar tighter, forcing Shizuru to look her straight in the eyes.

Natsuki's hands are shaking, and her brilliant emerald eyes are glassy as she searches Shizuru's eyes beseechingly for an answer. The girl with a heart of gold and a head full of straw, Shizuru thinks fondly. Natsuki wants a reason to believe her. She wants proof. Proof of everything that has transpired between them. Proof of who Shizuru is. Shizuru understands. After all, what were the odds of them meeting? What are the odds of this happening? Shizuru knows it is more likely that she would have been mugged and left in a ditch.

Natsuki is leaning over the counter, probably forced to tiptoe by virtue of her shortfall in height and the distance set between them. Looking at Natsuki now, up close, with her emerald eyes flashing and her breaths coming in short bursts, is like looking into the heart of a great tempest. Shizuru can see the tension in her biceps and the slight quiver in her lip, even the little freckles of her vivid irises. Shizuru knows it is peculiar to think such a thing in such a time, but it's hard, she finds, not to. This strange creature, with its emotions laid bare. It is something beautiful. Natsuki is something beautiful. Natsuki is-

Natsuki is on the cusp of something great, a tidal wave of pent up emotions. A slave to the pull of the tide, she is only trying to ride it all out.

Shizuru wants to etch it all into memory, file it away for a later date, for reference, for the future and the promise of what it will bring. She has seen things here not as they always are. She's not sure what it is, but she recognizes its preciousness all the same. No… No. Shizuru tells herself. She is beyond this. She needs to harden her resolve. She has no time for these trifle things. She will move beyond this. She must.

Shizuru closes her eyes to regain her footing, to slide her mask, as ever, back into place. When she looks at Natsuki once more, her eyes are calm and her voice is even, maybe even laced with frostiness. "You can't know, Natsuki. Not for sure. There is no proof. There is no other way. You can only believe your eyes and your ears. You can only trust me and my word."

Life is not a game, and what happened between them was not a lie, Shizuru wants to assure her that. But she cannot give Natsuki what she wants. Shizuru has destroyed the evidence. Snipped away at her identification cards with all the joy of a liberated inmate, fed all credit card and tax statements to her shredder and treated them like confetti.

Natsuki lets go of her collar and lets her arms hang limply at her side. Then she looks away, ashamed.

Shizuru understands. Yes, she does. She understands why Natsuki can't possibly understand. And she understands what she must do, knowing this.

For a tree to properly grow, its rotten branches must be pruned. The trees don't understand, but the gardener does. He sees things as they are, in macro. The same goes for everything else in the world, that is what she has been taught. If something is more a liability than an asset, cut it off. It will not do to lug around a rotten appendage for the sake of hubris, or whimsy. For what is sentimental attachment when weighed to survival and need? For what use is a sinking ship to a stowaway?

"Take my car, Natsuki. Just take it. It is more than enough to cover…everything I've put you through. Just- Just promise me you'll take care of it. It's very dear to me."

Natsuki looks up at her, in a daze. In the time spanning her reverie, Shizuru has walked to her car to retrieved her luggage from the trunk. Shizuru bends down to pick up the dropped plastic cup and sets it back down onto the tabletop, then she tosses her set of car keys to Natsuki, who barely reacts in time and fumbles to catch it.

Jerked out of her thoughts, Natsuki shouts out, holding the car keys up in the air, "Wait! That's it? You're going to walk out the door just like that?"

"Well, yes." Shizuru tries to keep her tone light, like she was just making an inane comment about the weather. " I'm going to do what the tanuki says I should do. Goodbye, Natsuki."

"It was…"

What was it? A roller coaster ride backwards and in the dark? Too short and too much and bittersweet by the end, leaving her in want? What was it?

"It's been quite a ride."

Shizuru turns around then, to give Natsuki a smile that only serves to confuse and befuddle her further. Then she turns around quickly to pick up her suitcase and stride purposefully out the door so that Natsuki will not see any cracks in the mask, so that she herself will not be bogged down by second thoughts.

"Where will you go?"

"Wherever my feet takes me." Shizuru says nonchalantly as she steps the rest of the way out of the threshold.

Shizuru lets out a sigh, long and deep. Empty words to fill the silence. She might as well have said nothing at all.

Behind her, the door closes; Its bell chiming like a death knell.

30.

The silence left in the wake of Shizuru's departure is deafening.

Natsuki storms over to Shizuru's damned beloved car planning to deliver a roundhouse kick, but she changes her trajectory at the last minute, and lashes out at her tool box instead. The box flies halfway across the room. It lands noisily onto its the side, scattering nuts and bolts and tools across the floor like a gutted animal.

She clenches the car keys in one hand so tight her knuckles turn white. With the other hand, Natsuki braces herself against the hood of the car and glares at a particularly nasty oil stain on the floor. "Tch."

''If you love the damn car so much, then you shouldn't give it up so fucking easily."

31.

Oh great, Shizuru thinks to herself, as the weight of her actions bear down on her. Seriously speaking, where will she go? Where will she stay? She needs a place to leave her luggage. A temporary base of operations. Just until she comes up with a proper exit strategy. Well, she thinks she spotted a love hotel a few streets back. At least the rates would be reasonable. It would certainly be an …enriching experience. Yes… That's a kind way to put it.

So where will she go after this? She has reached the bridge that she's meant to cross. Maybe she'll hitch a ride to the tip of Honshu, then take a ferry to Kyushu. Maybe she'll cross the border over to China or Russia. ...Maybe she'll dig a ditch near those cypress bushes over there, crawl in and be done with it.

Shizuru walks down the street, lugging her luggage along with her, and continues her slow trudge towards the general direction of the love hotel. While doing so, she tries to wrap her head around how to hitch a ride. She had seen someone do it on the cover of Natsuki's magazine just the other day, but all she remembers is the endearing shade of pink of Natsuki's cheeks when she flushes, and her warm and soft comforters.

She scrunches her brows together, deep in thought, trying to recollect. Passersby would think this serious young woman was pondering something deep and intrinsic and beyond comprehension, like the philosophical meaning of life, or how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

Thumbs up or thumbs down? Shizuru ruminates. What if… it pointed sideways? Left or right, then? Hmm… So many parameters to consider.

If only she had a sign to hold up. That would make things so much easier. All she would need to do is write out her desired destination, and everything else would be self-explanatory. Wait… no. Scratch that. Trying to hitchhike with a sign that just read 'Love Hotel' would surely send out some very mixed signals and paint a very skewed picture of the entire situation.

Shizuru turns at the curb, and finds herself… utterly lost. The street name is alien, as are the names of all the tiny shops lining the road.

Shizuru has had enough of signs for one day.

She curses her bad sense of direction, curses her abstracted thoughts, curses Natsuki for being so distracting. No, she reminds herself. No. It is not Natsuki's fault she cannot remember how to hitchhike. Memory is arbitrary and fragmented, and Shizuru has made her choice, unconscious though it may be. And so Shizuru backpedals and curses her tunnel vision instead, or in this case, tunnel memory.

So what will she do now? A city is a city, and a town is a town, wherever in the world. Every urban enclave is a maze of lost souls and empty buildings, and she is in the midst of another one; in the belly of another beast.

Her stomach growls, and she clutches onto it and blushes. She looks frantically around her to make sure nobody's overheard, then starts walking into the nearest eatery. Well, Japan is still Japan wherever she's stepping. Be it on a concrete pavement or a dirt road. And immediate priorities will always bubble to the surface, will always stave off grand plans for the future.

She comes back out with three sticks of Yakitori and directions to the nearest bus stop. She slaps a palm to her head for forgetting to ask about the whereabouts of the love hotel. Oh well, Shizuru thinks in a bid to comfort herself, the important thing was that she managed to grab something to eat.

32.

At the bus stop, she sets her suitcase down then sits on top of it, biting into her first stick of Yakitori and looking dejectedly off to one side like a lost child, absorbed once more in her thoughts.

It never pays to be abstracted, she thinks. She should forget about her plans too. Chuck every notion about a grand escape out the window and be done with it. It has given her nothing but false promise. She will just take the next bus in and follow it to the end of the line. If it took her to the ocean, she will cross the sea and never come back. If it ended with her back in Tokyo then she'd have her answer to what she should be doing with her goddamn life.

"I will take the next ride out and that will be that," she says out loud to no one in particular as she polishes off the last stick and deposits all the trash neatly into a nearby bin.

And so the waiting game begins yet again.

33.

Shizuru doesn't look blankly into the distance, seeing everything and nothing at the same time, trying to untangle her twisted thoughts. She doesn't try to look into the past, doesn't try to trace the neat, straight line of her life to the point where everything got so remarkably screwed up.

No, she keeps herself occupied with playing a mindless game on her iPhone. It's the perfect distraction. She doesn't even have to think, with muscle memory and instinct driving her every action. All of a sudden though, she hears a honk. She wants to grimace on instinct, it sounds like the cry of a dying goose.

It's probably nothing, Shizuru tells herself as she goes back to try and beat her high score. Honk! Goes the dying goose, louder this time. She looks up from her iPhone to see the same old beat-up truck Natsuki found her in, days ago.

The universe has a funny sense of humor.

"Get in." Natsuki's eyes are narrowed in anger, and her tone of voice offers no leeway for negotiation.

Shizuru blinks once, then again, and looks back down at her phone. Game Over! She is cheerily informed. Apparently, she has been squashed.

"Get in! You're holding up traffic." Natsuki honks her horn again, and the drivers behind her honk theirs in turn at the hold up. Shizuru tucks the phone into her purse and scrambles to get up. She eases her suitcase onto the back of the pick-up truck, and tentatively enters the front of the truck.

Natsuki drops Shizuru's car keys unceremoniously onto her lap, doesn't say anything apart from, "Seat belts."

So Shizuru buckles up, zips her lip too while she's at it, and keeps her eyes ahead and on the road, only daring to occasionally glance in Natsuki's direction.

34.

Natsuki is very obviously, very apparently, still pissed off at her, and it seems, at the world in general.

"Hey, Natsuki-chan, how are you do-" Midori nears to slap her on the back, but before she has the time to finish her greeting, Natsuki has elbowed her roughly in the ribs "-oof!"

Natsuki's bad mood seems almost palpable. She glares daggers at Midori, who takes one step backwards on instinct, and at Shizuru, who takes the blunt of it without flinching. Then, without sparing them a second glance, Natsuki proceeds to lug Shizuru's suitcase up the flight of stairs to the second floor. The door to her apartment slams to round off her angry exit.

Midori rubs her sore side and looks quizzically at Shizuru."What's got her goat?"

Shizuru sighs. "It's a long story, Midori-san."

"Hmm..Did you mess with her delicates?" Midori hazards a guess.

Shizuru shakes her head.

"Did you mention how windy it was? I don't know why, but the one time I said that, she got really, really angry."

Shizuru shakes her head yet again.

"Well, those are all the triggers I know of… What's up with that girl…"

"Don't hold it against Natsuki." Shizuru sags guiltily against the frame of the backdoor. "I'm sorry. It's my fault Natsuki's in such a foul mood. "

"Don't beat yourself up over it, alright? It's never solely someone's fault.'' Midori pauses for bit. "Natsuki-chan's a good kid, but she can be very hot-headed at times. Give her some time to cool down, and she'll come around."

Noticing her dispirited demeanor, Midori lays a maternal hand on her shoulder. She squeezes it reassuringly, then says, with a grin. "How about I treat you to a drink to get your mind off things?"

Shizuru gives a small smile at the gesture of comfort and secretly wants to laugh. Unfortunately, not all the answers to life lay at the bottom of a bottle of booze.

"Thank you for the offer, Midori-san, but I'm afraid I'll have to decline. Another time, perhaps."

Midori heaves a great sigh in mock disappointment. "Well, there goes my excuse to get drunk. Want to tag along on a grocery run?"

Well, Shizuru thinks. It's not like she has anything better to do. "Sure, why not."

So they go grocery shopping.

35.

When they return with bags full of groceries, Sakomizu is standing at the front of the porch with his arms crossed and a foot tapping impatiently on the ground.

"Oh man, this is so not my day." Midori frowns as they near the walkway.

"You better go on ahead and take these in with you, Shizuru-chan. The milk will have gone bad by the time Sakomizu's done ranting." She hands her share of the bags to Shizuru, but not before taking out a packet of crisps.

Shizuru raises a curious eyebrow at the packet of wasabi-mayo chips, prompting Midori to answer."I always get bored halfway through his spiels about plants and stuff… besides, I'm feeling a little peckish. Want some?"

Shizuru raises a hand to politely decline, and Midori shrugs.

"Maybe later, then. It tastes better than it sounds, I swear." Midori says as she transfers another packet into one of Shizuru's plastic bags.

"Uh-oh, the giant's on the move, get going, humming-bird."

Since when did we start using code-names? Shizuru wants to ask, but Midori's already taking long, purposeful strides away from her, a winning smile already on her face.

36.

Shizuru zips into the house from the back. She stows the most crucial items into the fridge in record time and leaves the rest of the bags on the counter. Then she dashes through the house to press an ear to the front door.

There is a crinkle on the other end, and the distinct crunching sound of someone munching on crisps.

"Sugiura, this entire debacle has the marks of you and your drunken shenanigans all over it! Confess now, and I'll go easy on the punishment."

"It wasn't me, I swear!" Midori garbles out in-between mouthfuls of chips, probably spewing bits of chips everywhere, along with the words."Well, okay, there was that one time, but c'mon! I didn't throw up anywhere near your petunias on friday night. Youko's DVD player on the other hand…"

There is a pause, wherein Shizuru is sure she hears Midori whisper conspiratorially,"let's keep that between us, alright?"

"Stop eating already! You're not supposed to eat during a confrontation."

"Well, deal with it. This is comfort food for all the stress your confrontation's causing me!"

They are talking so loud that Shizuru does not even need to make an effort to eavesdrop. Shizuru pushes herself off from the door and grimaces. Midori is out there being grilled for something that Shizuru herself has done. She knows what she has to do. This is it, Shizuru. Time to right your wrongs. Face the music. Own up.

In the background, the crinkling only gets louder. Shizuru's not sure what's going on, but… it sounds like they are having a tug of war over a bag of chips.

"No, my chips!"

Shizuru opens the front door, and steps out, just in time to get doused in a spray of potato chips.

When in doubt, always tell the truth in a timely manner.

37.

Natsuki's done her fair share of thinking - and rampaging, that too, though that is besides the point here.

Natsuki crouches down next to Shizuru in the soft soil, tucks her hands into the back pocket of her jeans, and regards her.

Shizuru's wearing a borrowed a straw hat and blue overalls. There is dirt on her face, and on her clothes. She's bound to have soil under her fingernails too, despite the gloves, at the rate she's yanking out weeds and man-handling the gardening tools. It is honorable dirt, Natsuki supposes. A product of honest toil and an honest day's work. But honestly, it's so out of place on Shizuru that it's almost funny. She can picture Shizuru in the office at her clutter-free, almost sterile desk, outsourcing and relegating work, while she herself sits down for a nice cup of afternoon tea.

Shizuru makes no move to acknowledge her presence, just continues prying weeds out, one after another.

Natsuki, in an attempt to make conversation, says the most obvious thing in the world. "Sakomizu's got you on weed duty, huh?"

"He won't let me near the petunias. He thinks I'm a spy working for someone called Miss Maria. Is she a member of some secret organization I should be aware of?"

Shizuru still won't look up at her. She is answering though, and Natsuki concludes that it is a definite improvement.

Natsuki laughs. "She's a retired teacher, and our next door neighbor. They're sworn rivals, or something. But, um... forget it."

She fumbles for the right words and phrasing, decides in the end, to screw it. After all, the most sincere words are said without forethought. "That's… that's not why I'm here. I'm sorry. Not for getting so angry, but for the way I acted. You're right, I don't understand. I don't understand why you would run. I don't understand why you would leave the things you love so easily. I'm… clumsy. Really, really clumsy. And, beyond that, I was a right asshole."

She twiddles her thumbs together, looks at a ladybug skittering over a leaf. It isn't exactly the model source of courage or inspiration, but it serves well enough to distract.

"You're infuriating, you know? More than anyone else I know. And you're annoying and childish too." Natsuki ticks off Shizuru's less than flattering attributes like a list of misdemeanors.

"…But you're a good person, Shizuru. And, I'm sorry, you didn't deserve that." Natsuki pauses for a beat, considering.

"Also, you make really nice tempura."

She traces the ladybug's wriggly path of movement right to the moment it takes flight. When she looks back at Shizuru, she's startled to find that she holds Shizuru's undivided attention. Maybe startled is the wrong word. Natsuki is surprised, but not unpleasantly so.

38.

Shizuru wants to laugh. It seems, that in Natsuki's world, culinary skills double as a redeeming quality.

"You're not very good at apologies, are you, Natsuki?"

Natsuki opens her mouth to retort, but Shizuru raises a gardening tool to silence her, and for once, Natsuki complies. For once, she backs down.

"Thank you, but you didn't have to apologize."

"Why do you think we're here, Natsuki? At this precise time, in this precise place, crouched down in the soil on 'weed duty', as you call it?"

A gust of wind flurries past them, knocking the straw hat off from atop Shizuru's head, and making it hang to the back of her neck by a thin string. In the warm hue of the setting sun, the reddish-brown shade of Shizuru's eyes look almost luminescent. At the sight, Natsuki lets out a little puff of air. She doesn't remember when she started holding her breath.

Shizuru ploughs on, paying no mind to her wind-swept hair. She plucks the stem of a weed out and holds it out to Natsuki, twirling it between finger and thumb. "The wind blows and two dandelion seeds do not fly. I'm sorry, Natsuki, that we had to meet that way. I'm sorry for all the trouble I have caused you. You don't have to do this out of compulsion. I can take care of myself. You don't have to let me in."

The wind continues its ferocious howl, like the prairie song of wild dogs baying at the moon. It rattles the roof and the wind chimes, making them sing along.

"I don't like your analogy." Natsuki declares as she unceremoniously flicks the poor little weed, causing the two remaining pods to scatter, riding on the trailing undercurrents of the breeze and rising off and into the air.

And then Natsuki turns to Shizuru and flicks her pointedly in the middle of her forehead.

Natsuki speaks like her words are the most obvious thing in the world. She speaks like Shizuru, for all her grace and credentials, is just a girl beneath it all. "Idiot. I'm not a victim of circumstance, and neither are you. We can't choose our lives, but we can choose how we live it. You were stupid enough to run away, and I'm stupid enough to take you in."

Natsuki pauses, and the vacuum of silence is filled by chatty calls of cicadas.

"Natsuki is, as always, too kind. When will you learn your lesson?" Shizuru smiles then, confusing as always, with the promise of danger, like the sharp edge of a blade.

Natsuki has learnt to recognize that smile, knows not to trust it.

Natsuki bristles, hackles raised. "Who says I was ever kind? And who's to say that I haven't? You still owe me one, Shizuru. Two, in fact. I've been keeping score."

"Isn't my car enough to cover all those expenses and more? It's very generous of you to extend that offer, but I never said I wanted to stay here, Natsuki."

Well, Natsuki thinks. Let Shizuru smile that way. Let Shizuru be difficult. She can be difficult too.

"Well, I never said I was keeping your car! I'm a mechanic, not a used-car salesman. I have my Ducati, what use would I have for your car?"

Shizuru has long since stopped pulling out weeds. She fails to grasp Natsuki's concept of transport adultery. Oh, I don't know, she thinks aimlessly, maybe you could sell it and get some good money? Of course that thought never crossed Natsuki's mind, of course.

"You said it yourself, didn't you?" Natsuki reasons diplomatically.

"You said that you'll go wherever your feet takes you. Well, it's brought you here." Technically, it was Natsuki that brought her here on both occasions, but, technicalities remain just that."You need a place to stay, and you've got it."

"This isn't a free-ride. This isn't pity or charity or any of that crap. You're not off the hook that easily. This…" Natsuki trails off, trying to find the words. Natsuki's always had problems with finding the right words. "This is a partnership. You'll need to pay rent. Or cook, or something. And you're on permanent dish-duty!"

Shizuru slumps resignedly and blows a damp strand of hair out of her face. Natsuki does have a point. She gives up. "I intend to pay my debts to you in full, Natsuki."

"Yes, Yes." Natsuki waves her off. She shifts closer and reaches out to place the straw hat firmly back on top of Shizuru's head.

Shizuru probably owes Natsuki more than she will care to let her know.

39.

Natsuki leans back on the heels of her purple converse sneakers, busying herself with watching Shizuru toil away in her blue overalls and straw hat, while she tries not to snort in laughter at the sight of it all.

"You could help, you know?" Shizuru raises her shoulder to stop the sweat running down and stinging her eyes.

"I could, yeah." Natsuki smirks cheekily, and Shizuru answers with the mother of all deadpanned looks.

"Alright, alright," Natsuki procures a handkerchief from the side pocket of her jeans then reaches out to gently dab at the sweat gathering at Shizuru's temple, and along the nape of her neck.

Shizuru wrinkles her nose, but smiles gratefully at the kind gesture. "Well, that wasn't what I had in mind, but thank you, Natsuki."

Natsuki sneezes from out of the blue. She pulls back the handkerchief, and uses the non-damp ends to blow her nose."Sorry, I can't help much. I'm allergic to pollen."

Shizuru laughs in mirth. "That's alright, it's not your fault. But it's ironic, no? For a summer princess."

Natsuki bristles, but blushes in embarrassment nonetheless. "I didn't choose my name. I blame my mother …And my birthdate."

Shizuru smiles in mirth."It's funny. Did you know? They say that children grow to exemplify the name they are given at birth." Shizuru tries in vain to yank out a particularly stubborn weed.

Natsuki scoffs and stuffs the handkerchief back into her pocket. "I obviously didn't get the memo. The characters of my name, they don't mean that though, but I never liked the summer…bloody heat waves. The blooming flowers don't help either! At least in winter it was cool." She kicks over some soil and entombs that particularly stubborn, and now extremely unfortunate weed.

"Don't take it out on the flora, Natsuki." Shizuru admonishes while she swats away Natsuki's leg. "Don't take it out on your mother either. She chose your name well. It suits you, my dear. I'm afraid Fuyuki wouldn't quite fit the bill."

"Ah, um… thank you. I guess you're right. I didn't get to choose my name, and I didn't grow into it, but it did grow on me."

40.

The silence reigns once more, a benevolent presence this time round, like a sentry on the lookout while the two of them immerse themselves in their thoughts. This time, it is Shizuru's turn to break the quiet.

"You know, Natsuki, I've been doing some thinking."

"Hm?"

"It may just be the heat talking."

"Or the dehydration," Natsuki quips helpfully.

"Maybe both, Shizuru agrees. Her tongue darts out to lick her dry lips. "Well, it seems to me, that everything is just a matter of perspective."

"You know, there is nothing to biologically distinguish a weed and a flower. The only difference between them is that while flowers are planted and grown purposefully, weeds are unexpected invaders."

"So, let's say that I wanted the weeds to be there. Let's say that my carelessness and indolent gardening ethic was actually part of a grand design to make my ideal garden then… bam. The weeds are flowers."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that, and then I wouldn't have to pull them out." Shizuru smiles, wide and guileless."Cool, huh?"

Yes, that would have been something to think about, but Natsuki has a sinking feeling about this entire situation.

"Uh… huh. Real philosophical. Um, quick, how many fingers am I holding out?"

"Four and a half? Thumbs don't count."

"I wasn't holding up my thumb!"

Natsuki pulls back her straw hat and finally notices her bleary eyes and flushed skin. She presses a hand to Shizuru's forehead and her palm comes back wet with sweat. She is feverish. She is feverish and she is sweating like a hooker in church.

Oh shit, Natsuki thinks in rising panic. Oh shit on a double dip ice-cream stick.

"Auuugh! How long have you been out here, Shizuru? Come on, you've been a garden slave for long enough. Let's get you indoors before you start waxing poetic about the earthworms!" Natsuki rises to her feet. She really, really hates summer.

"I'm afraid it's too late for that." Shizuru says with all the solemness of a doctor breaking the news about his patient's terminal illness. "I've already thought up a haiku."

"Save it for later. I can't take you seriously when you're dressed up as an italian plumber." Natsuki deadpans as she urges Shizuru up onto her feet.

Shizuru huffs and retaliates to that particular smartass comment with a firm slap to Natsuki's posterior. Natsuki yelps and glares at her. Then she grabs both her gloved hands and starts leading them back into the house, all the while muttering about heat exhaustion and the hell she'll give Sakomizu when she finds that afro-head.

Shizuru decides that she will conveniently forget to tell Natsuki about the dirty brown handprint on her left butt-cheek. She brazenly hopes they will run into some housemates along the way.

Let it be known that revenge, even in small doses, even in not-at-all appropriate situations, can still be immensely satisfying.

41.

It is the end of yet another day. Natsuki wanders into the pantry with the intention of whipping up a light snack before she prepares to - once again - crash on her couch.

It is after dinner, but it has been a long day, and Natsuki has worked up quite the appetite. She's sorting through the bags of groceries that Midori brought up when she comes across a curious and unfamiliar item. She holds it curiously up in the air and begins her appraisal. "Hm.. mayo and wasabi flavored potato chips? Eh, why not?"

Opening the door to the fridge she takes out a can of beer and a bottle of mayonnaise. Because chips always taste better with dip; Because, in Natsuki's world, there really was no such thing as too much mayo. She makes a pleased sound in the back of her throat, then with all the items in hand, proceeds to kick the fridge door shut.

She's just about complete with her preparations for her midnight snack when she spies a slip of paper on the counter.

In neat, cursive handwriting, it reads:

Heat sears the soil red  
as I toil intently to  
pluck the ripe, round plum.

"Wise guy." Natsuki mutters as her face blooms red. Why is she even blushing? A better question would be why does everything Shizuru say, and apparently, write make her blush? She presses the can of beer to her forehead to stave off another throbbing headache, and to get the color to recede.

"B–","No Earthworms" she scrawls upon the paper in red ink and underlines the grade, then tacks it to the fridge with a magnet. Snack time can wait, she decides. It is time to check on the patient.

* * *

[Edit: I changed the name to Fuyuki, cause I realized Haruki wouldn't make much sense in the context. Sorry for the initial misinformation. Also did some minor editing. Thanks for pointing those out guys! ]

I hope you guys weren't bored by the freakish length of this. Especially when Shizuru and Natsuki are neither sexy here nor off on some epic adventure. They're just...gardening. And stuff.

Thank you for all the comments and encouragement thus far! I'm really glad you liked the opening thing (I don't know what to call it either) mysterious guest! :) And Tawny Redwood, I hope I won't disappoint.


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